Customer Reviews

Bad Timing and Other Stories

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The first thing you notice in reading twenty-one of Molly Brown's stories so close together is how very different they are from each other. The tone can be anything from lighthearted and funny to the darkest noir, while Brown's topics range from first alien contact to a day in the life of a drug-addicted prostitute, stopping off at everything from cannibalism to time travel to political thriller along the way, but the one thing her stories always have in common is that they are, almost without exception, incredibly good. There are too many excellent stories in this collection to comment on every single one, so I'll just give my top three.

In such a sparkling company, it is hard to select a favourite, but if I was forced to choose only one, I think the top story for me has to be The Psychomantium, which is part ghost story, part alternate world science fiction, and part mystery, combined with an evocative sense of place. This is a haunting, and ultimately very moving, story that will stay with me for a very long time.

The Vengeance of Grandmother Wu comes a very close second: it's a contemporary fantasy set in London's Soho, and it's got everything a reader could want: action, romance, a fantastic climax in which a Chinese demon charges down Shaftesbury Avenue on horseback, and a resolution that is both touching and satisfying.

My third choice has to be Ruella In Love, simply because it's hilarious. The final installment in a trilogy of humorous vignettes about a teenaged princess who's trying her best to be really, really evil, those of use that live with teenagers will see much here that they recognise!

You don't need to be a science fiction and fantasy fan to appreciate Molly Brown's stories. With so much variety of style and mood, and so many surprising twists and turns in every tale, there should be something in Bad Timing and Other Stories to appeal to everyone, and I highly recomend it.

Short story collections are not much in vogue at the moment; odd, that, given that a short story is an ideal way to get through a day's commuting or a lunch-break in the park. Well, we buy what's put in front of us, and many publishers evidently think we don't want short stories. Congratulations, then, to Big Engine who have brought out this collection of Molly Brown's work, and in doing so supplied a healthy dose of something else that's in short supply: sheer imagination.

...These stories are variously bizarre, striking, incisive and hilarious, and consistently brilliant in concept and execution. Treat yourself.

I got many great treats reading Molly Brown's short story collection "Bad Timing and Other Stories." I got the delight one gets when a story has that wonderful "page turner" quality, that sense of not being able to wait to see what happens next. What I had not experienced in other short story collections was the joy of knowing that, although the next story isn't a continuation of what I'd just finished, I could expect another great read in the next tale, nonetheless! I can't say that's been the case in many of the collections I've read; I usually find a few stories I don't bother to finish, and I've learned not to expect to be grabbed by every story. Not true in this collection! Ms. Brown gave me story after story to enjoy. And you can imagine how much a reader appreciates that!

Sci-fi aficionado or not, get ready for a real feast. You'll find well written, well plotted stories, the funny, the macabre, (in essence, the works!) in this book. These stories are top of the line stuff in the Sci-fi genre, but don't be surprised when Stephen King and Flannery O'Conner come to mind as you read, (you'll get a touch of Harris' "Silence of the Lambs" too, by the way). You'll get other worlds right along with our own, time travel, parallel universes, endearing and bizarre characters, twists and turns you never saw coming, layers of funny as well as the philosophical, and all of it tightly crafted into an entertaining and satisfying read. I highly recommend "Bad Timing and Other Stories," and I'm hungry for more from this versatile and talented writer.

Molly Brown's short stories have been appearing in magazines and anthologies for several years, and are always the highlight of any publication. Now at last they have been collected together in one volume and the world can see what a talent this author has.

Some of the stories are funny, some are sad, some are scary, but all are very, very clever. Any aspiring author is going to read this heart-achingly good book and think, 'I wish I could write like that.'

Anybody who enjoys intelligent, witty stories that straddle sci-fi, fantasy, horror and crime will enjoy this book and will want to read these stories again and again.

I had read many of these 21 stories before (about half of them had been published in Interzone),but I looked forward to reading them again, and I was not disappointed. As the title suggests, some stories feature time travel, the title story and Women on the Brink of a Cataclysm taking a witty approach to the paradoxes involved, with an attractive feminist flavour. Other stories feature Ruella, a teenage princess with satanic ambitions. There are vampires, cannibals, Chinese sorcerers, cops and anarchists. There is too much here to summarise. Read it for yourself. Even the grimmest stories will make you grin.

Bad Timing & Other Stories by Molly Brown is a very exiting collection of stories. I can't recommend it highly enough, and I don't usually read this sort of book! I will from now on. Every story catches the reader from the first line. You have to find out what is going to happen! Every story is imaginative, lively, and compulsory reading. My hairdresser thought so. So has everyone else who's read it, that is, from over my shoulder, because the book goes everywhere I go. I have been putting off reading the last story in fact. It will be a sad day to finish this book. The stories take you through futuristic romps, supernatural nightmares and plausible ghostly happenings. Each is long enough to have you totally hooked, but not so long you can't squeeze in reading another one before going on to the next appointment! I certainly hope Molly Brown will write another collection of these, soon.

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